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A lot of the growing applications on the web are written in PHP, and they most likely will be written in PHP for a while to come. However, this is bound to change. I think that Ruby/Ruby on Rails might be a step towards that change.

I think all the hype behind Ruby on Rails points to it's potential. RoR has great potential to become the most widely used web dev language. However, it all depends on the web developers and how they choose to use the language.

yesterday was python. Today is ruby. Tomorrow....who knows. But in general people still develop in php for the web. Think of it.

Think of what? What exactly is your point? That anything new should be disregarded because something else exists? Rubbish. And its not Ruby alone that is being pushed at the web (though it can be used in a similar way to PHP), its the Ruby/Rails combination.

People are using Rails because it is an excellent framework that offers so much more than simple PHP, and because there isn't a framework for PHP that is nearly as good as Rails (in my opinion, and probably many others opinions too, otherwise why would they be using Rails?).

PHP will probably always be more popular because its not strictly aimed at web professionals, but enthusiasts as well, who probably have little reason to learn something like Rails.

Think of what? What exactly is your point? That anything new should be disregarded because something else exists? Rubbish. And its not Ruby alone that is being pushed at the web (though it can be used in a similar way to PHP), its the Ruby/Rails combination.

People are using Rails because it is an excellent framework that offers so much more than simple PHP, and because there isn't a framework for PHP that is nearly as good as Rails (in my opinion, and probably many others opinions too, otherwise why would they be using Rails?).

PHP will probably always be more popular because its not strictly aimed at web professionals, but enthusiasts as well, who probably have little reason to learn something like Rails.

And can we stop referring to Rails as a language

1) PHP is younger than ruby. PHP was born in 1995.
2) Stop saying that there are things that you can't do with php that instead you can do with ruby......we know that it isn't true.
3) PHP is for amateurs? Ahahahaah. That is a very stupid point of view for me. Why php is for amateurs and ruby for professionals? If i must learn PHP or ruby i study in the same way, program in the same way ecc. ecc.

1) PHP is younger than ruby. PHP was born in 1995.
2) Stop saying that there are things that you can't do with php that instead you can do with ruby......we know that it isn't true.
3) PHP is for amateurs? Ahahahaah. That is a very stupid point of view for me. Why php is for amateurs and ruby for professionals? If i must learn PHP or ruby i study in the same way, program in the same way ecc. ecc.

Thanks, but try reading posts properly before you post such a dismissive and ignorant response.

1) I'm fully aware of that. I didn't say Ruby was new. Rails is though, and its Rails that is being targetted at the web. And I was making a general statement...i.e., something shouldn't be disregarded because it is new or because something else already exists that does the job.

2) Many of the things that makes Rails possible are because Ruby the language simply can do things at the language level that PHP cannot, specifically much more powerful reflection and the ability to redefine classes at runtime, meta-programming and the ability to create domain-specific languages, and not to mention modules and the power of mixins. This doesn't mean you can get the same end results using PHP but Rails isn't about doing different things to PHP - its about doing them a lot more elegantly and lot more easily.

Tell me you can write something that works in the same way as ActiveRecord with the same elegance and lack of configuration and I'll call you a liar.

However, all of that said, where did I even say there are things that you can do in Ruby/Rails that you can't do in PHP in my previous post?

3) I didn't say PHP was for amateurs at all. I said that PHP isn't targetted specifically at professionals, but is can also be picked up and used by amaterus and hobbyists as well.

Look, I'll highlight it just to make it easier for you:

its not strictly aimed at web professionals, but enthusiasts as well

There are probably billions of lines of PHP code out there and I'd be willing to bet that at least half of them were written by amateurs. That isn't to say PHP isn't a) a professional language and b) cannot be used professionally. However, Rails offers far more value to a professional developer than an amateur/hobbyist, which is why we'll be seeing PHP for a long time to come.

@Skyblaze I know your concerns, and do you know I was actually quite a flamer of Ruby 2 or 3 months ago ?
If you haven't by now, try it and see how it feels. It will not replace PHP, or Java, or ASP, although it may take some share of the market.

I like it not because with it I am more productive. That's rubish. A programmer is the most productive in the language it knows best. I like it because it's fun to work with. At first when I heard that claim I disconsidered it, I thought it was just hype. But I was wrong. It is really fun to work with Ruby (and Rails).

the distincion between these two languages on a amateur/professional basis is ridiculous. I can use php or ruby either in an amateurs way or professional way.

For christs sake, you are missing the point entirely. Nowhere was I comparing the languages on an amateur/professional basis. I was simply explaining why PHP will not disappear overnight because it has a solid amateur/hobbyist user base that would have little to no interest in something like Rails which on the whole is aimed more at the professional developer (not that that stops a hobbyist from using it). The distinction between PHP and Rails, in explaining the above, is perfectly valid.

Do you make a frequent habit out of not reading posts properly or taking things out of context, or do you just get a kick out of it?

Well, the vast majority of applications are small to medium ones and that is a big overlap since both Rails and asp.net are suitable for them.
And PHP is currently a mainstream platform used by big companies. So is Perl and Python. So why shouldn't Ruby be there also ? Scripting languages are just better and cheaper for some tasks.

Because most companies are cheap. The finance department really doesn't care what language you prefer at most companies. Unless you can give them concrete evidence that it's cheaper to develop for RoR, they'll just ignore you.

Unfortunately, in most companies, it's the finance people that make the technical decisions.

For christs sake, you are missing the point entirely. Nowhere was I comparing the languages on an amateur/professional basis. I was simply explaining why PHP will not disappear overnight because it has a solid amateur/hobbyist user base that would have little to no interest in something like Rails which on the whole is aimed more at the professional developer (not that that stops a hobbyist from using it). The distinction between PHP and Rails, in explaining the above, is perfectly valid.

Do you make a frequent habit out of not reading posts properly or taking things out of context, or do you just get a kick out of it?

ok but the fact that many hobbyists use it it doesn't mean that it is a language aimed to hobbyists. There are a lot of hobbyistes that use php 'cause it is simple to work with for a beginner to do simple script ecc for example....but then there professionals who knows php in a more advanced manner and that is in every language of the same type ( i mean scripting "easy" languages).

@Skyblaze I know your concerns, and do you know I was actually quite a flamer of Ruby 2 or 3 months ago ?
If you haven't by now, try it and see how it feels. It will not replace PHP, or Java, or ASP, although it may take some share of the market.

I like it not because with it I am more productive. That's rubish. A programmer is the most productive in the language it knows best. I like it because it's fun to work with. At first when I heard that claim I disconsidered it, I thought it was just hype. But I was wrong. It is really fun to work with Ruby (and Rails).

right now i don't need to learn it. I'm learning php cause is the standard web language now and i really like it. And i'd want to learn it well rather than learning another language only beacuse it is the fashion of the moment.

I think there is a point that everyone may be beating around with the amateur/professional arguments.

I would say it is PHP's ability to be either procedural or OO which is a high point of the low barrier to entry, I assert that most hobbyists start using PHP from a purely procedural approach. OOP is a conceptual hurdle, which many users both professional and amateur make use of, but is in greater demand by the professional element. Ruby can be used in a procedural manner, similar to PHP, but to use Rails, you are introduced into Ruby's OOP model up front and personal. The fact that you must engage in OOP programming immediately may be a reason some posters feel Rails will have less appeal to an amateur audience.

ok but the fact that many hobbyists use it it doesn't mean that it is a language aimed to hobbyists. There are a lot of hobbyistes that use php 'cause it is simple to work with for a beginner to do simple script ecc for example....but then there professionals who knows php in a more advanced manner and that is in every language of the same type ( i mean scripting "easy" languages).

Ruby can be used in a procedural manner, similar to PHP, but to use Rails, you are introduced into Ruby's OOP model up front and personal. The fact that you must engage in OOP programming immediately may be a reason some posters feel Rails will have less appeal to an amateur audience.

Please, let me know how one would use Ruby without using it's OOP nature? It is quite literally impossible to use Ruby without using OO since everything is an object.

Code:

a = 15 # 15 is an object
a = "hello" # hello is an object

This is what I personally love about ruby, since EVERYTHING is an object, you can do lots of cool things with numbers, words, etc.

Code:

15.times{ dothis }
"hello".gsub(/e/, '!')

I don't mean to bash on you, but simply point out that it is drastically different than PHP when comparing it's OOP nature. PHP's OO feels tacked on (any seasoned programmer will agree) while Ruby is OO to the core. You cannot escape OO with Ruby.

Procedural syntax is included, but everything done in Ruby procedurally (that is, outside of the scope of a particular object) is actually done to the Object class. Since this class is parent to every other class, the changes become visible to all classes and objects.

In one sense, yes. But in another, just because you have an object oriented toolset at your disposal, doesn't necessarily mean you are going to be solving problems with a completely OOP style.

It's like the difference between:
text.chomp.squeeze(' ').upcase (easy, but kind of procedural)
and
text.yell (custom method promotes such OO concepts as abstraction and reusability)

Perhaps, I suppose what I'm trying to point out here is that Ruby starts as OO and you have to force it to procedural, while PHP starts as procedural and you have to force it to OO. Comparing the use of OO in the two languages cannot be done. It's like asking someone who drives an automatic whether they would consider buying a stick shift next car purchase, and asking a person who drives a stick whether they will buy a stick shift next car purchase.